Dear Anthony:

I agree with you that the average Catholic should not watch these television shows because it is too easy to become confused and unless you really truly know your Church history and teaching. The distortions, exaggerations, and outright lies about Church history and teachning is shameful and thoroughly bigoted with no relation to the truth.

It is true that most Protestant denominations are not going to consider themselves "separated brethren." It is not our concern how Protestants consider themselves in relation to the Catholic Church.

All people who are validly baptized, which means with water that touches the skin either by pouring or immersion, and performed according to the Trinitarian formula, are members of the Catholic Church in an imperfect way whether they know it or not or like it or not. There is only one baptism. There's no such thing as a Presbyterian baptism, a Baptist baptism, Methodist baptism, etc. There is only one baptism. The baptism that Jesus required of us was through his Bride, the Church. The the church that Jesus was to found was the Catholic Church, with Christ's appointed Prime Minister (his Vicar the Pope) as its earthly leader. That is a historical fact and anyone who wishes to dispute that either has no intelligence, is very ignorant, or just a plain ol' bigot.

Because it is a theological fact that all people who are validly baptized are baptized into Christ's only true Church, the Catholic Church, that means that those who are not in full communion with the Catholic Church, whether they be Protestants, Anglicans, Orthodox, or some other denomination, or so-called non-denomination are all imperfect members of the Catholic Church by virtue of their baptism.

There are some denominations who call themselves Christians who do not have valid baptism, thus they are not "separated brethren." Those groups include Jehovah's Witness, One Holiness Pentecostals, and Mormons, among other groups.

Since our "separated brethren" are in fact theologically part of the Catholic Church we need to work hard toward unity. The disunity that occurred in the eleventh century between the Eastern and Western Churches, but especially the utter ripping apart of the Christian world that was spearheaded by Martin Luther, is a scandal to the Body of Christ, is a sinful departure from Christ's specific call for his children to be one, and a violation of the teaching of St. Paul against denominationalism found in a 1 Corinthians 1:10-15.

This theological fact is not a result of Vatican II. Vatican II did not introduce anything new. It did, however, restate and clarify doctrines that previously existed. For example, the teaching about Salvation is found only in the Catholic Church was not changed by Vatican II as some people surmise. Father Feeney in the 1940s asserted that one must be a card-carrying Catholic to go to heaven. When father Feeney refused to change his view in communion with the Church he was excommunicated. Thus, the idea that Salvation is found only in the Catholic Church is still asserted, and was always asserted, but clarified that there are those people who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ or his Church, and thus may be saved by God, who can save whom he pleases, by virtue of that invincible ignorance. As the father Feeney case shows this idea was not a new invention of Vatican II.

Thus as Catholics we are to affirm and believe what it says in the Catechism:

838 "The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter." Those "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church." With the Orthodox Churches, this communion is so profound "that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord's Eucharist."

"Outside the Church there is no salvation"

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.

848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."

Pray for our Separated Brethren that they may be enlightened and come to realize that Christ established One Church to which they are called to be in communion.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary